Lem, Stanislaw (29 page)

perfectionistic principle. The Ninnicans had long ago assumed another

name, that of Hedophagoi or Jubileaters, or just plain Jubilators. My

arrival occurred during their Era of Plenty. Each and every Ninnican,

or rather Jubilator, sat in his palace, which was built for him by

his automate (for so they called their triboluminescent slaves), each

with essences anointed, each with precious gems appointed,

electrically caressed, impeccably dressed, pomaded, braided,

gold-brocaded, lapped and laved in ducats gleaming, wrapped and

wreathed in incense streaming, showered with treasures, plied with

pleasures, marble halls, fanfares, balls, but for all that, strangely

discontent and even a little depressed. And yet there was everything

you could ask for! On this planet no one lifted a finger: instead of

taking a walk, a drink, a nap, a trip or a wife, there was a Walker

to walk one, a Napper to nap one, a Wiver to wive one, and so on, and

it was even impossible for one to take a break, since there was a

special apparatus for that as well. And thus, served and serviced by

machines in every conceivable way, all medaled and maidened by

appropriate automatic Decorators and Panderizers five to fifteen

times per minute, covered with a seething, silvery swarm of

mechanicules and machinerettes to coddle him, fondle him, wink, wave

and whisper sweet nothings in his ear, back-rub, chin-chuck,

cheek-pat and foot-grovel him, tirelessly kissing whatever he might

present to be kissed—thus did the Jubilator
vel
Hedophage
vel
Ninnican wallow and carouse the livelong day,

alone, while in the distance, all across the horizon, chugged the

mighty Fabrifactories, churning out thrones of gold, dandle chains,

pearl slippers and bibs, orbs, scepters, epaulets, spinels, spinets,

cymbals, surreys, and a million other instruments and gratifacts to

delight in. As I walked along, I constantly had to drive away

machines that offered me their services; the more brazen ones,

greedily seeking to be of use, had to be beaten over the head.

Finally, fleeing the whole crowd of them, I found myself in the

mountains —and saw a host of golden machines clamoring around

the mouth of a cave walled up with stones, and through a narrow

opening there I saw the watchful eyes of a Ninnican, who was

apparently making a last stand against Universal Happiness. Seeing

me, the machines immediately began to fan and fawn upon my person,

read me fairy tales, stroke me, kiss my hands, promise me kingdoms,

and I was saved thanks only to the one in the cave, who mercifully

moved aside a stone and let me enter. He was half rusted through, yet

glad of it, and said that he was the last philosopher of Ninnica.

There was no need, of course, for him to tell me that plenitude, when

too plenitudinous, was worse than destitution, for—obviously—what

could one do, if there was nothing one could not? Truly, how could a

mind, besieged by a sea of paradises, benumbed by a plethora of

possibilities, thoroughly stunned by the instant fulfillment of

its every wish and whim—decide on anything? I conversed with

this wise individual, who called himself Trizivian Huncus, and we

concluded that without enormous shields and an Ontological

Complicositor-Imperfector, doom was unavoidable. Trizivian had

for some time regarded complicositry as the ultimate existential

solution; I, however, showed him the error of this approach, since it

consisted simply in the removal of machines with the aid of

other machines, namely gnawpers, thwockets, tenterwrenches,

fracturacks, hobblers and winch-shrieks. Which obviously would only

make matters worse—it wouldn't be complicositry at all,

but just the opposite. As everyone knows, History is irreversible,

and there is no way back to the halcyon past other than through

dreams and reveries.

Together we walked across a vast

plain, knee-deep in ducats and doubloons, waving sticks to shoo off

clouds of pesky blisserits, and we saw several Ninnican-Jubilators

lying senseless, gasping softly, all sated, satiated, supersaturated

with pleasure; the sight of such excessive surfeit, such reckless

success, would have moved anyone to pity. Then there were the

inhabitants of the automated palaces, who wildly threw themselves

into cyberserking and other electroeccentricities, some setting

machine against machine, some smashing priceless vases, for no

longer could they endure the ubiquitous beatitude, and they

opened fire on emeralds, guillotined earrings, ordered diadems

broken on the wheel, or tried to hide from happiness in garrets and

attics, or else ordered their appliances to whip themselves, or did

all of these things at once, or in alternation. But absolutely

nothing helped, and every last one of them perished, petted and

attended to death. I advised Trizivian against simply shutting

down the Fabrifactories, for having too little is as dangerous

as having too much; but he, instead of studying up on the

consequences of ontological complicositry, immediately began to

dynamite the automates sky-high. A grievous mistake, for there

followed a great depression, though indeed, he never lived to

see it—it happened that a flock of flyrts swooped down upon him

somewhere, and gallivamps and libidinators grabbed him, carried him

to a cossetorium, there befuddled him with cuddlebutts, ogled, bussed

and gnuzzled him to distraction, till he succumbed with a strangled

cry of Rape!—and afterwards lay lifeless in the wasteland,

buried in ducats, his shabby armor charred with the flames of

mechanical lust… And that, Your Highness, was the end of one

who was wise but could have been wiser!" concluded Trurl,

adding, when he saw that these words still did not satisfy King

Thumbscrew:

"Just what does Your Most Royal

Highness want?"

"O constructor!" replied

Thumbscrew. "You say that your tales are to improve the mind,

but I do not find this to be so. They are, however, amusing, and

therefore it is my wish that you tell me more and more of them, and

do not stop."

"O King!" answered Trurl.

"You would learn from me what is perfection and how it may be

gained, yet prove unable to grasp the deep meanings and great

truths with which my narratives abound. Truly, you seek amusement and

not wisdom—yet, even as you listen, my words do slowly

penetrate and act upon your brain, and later too will act, much

as a time bomb. To this end, allow me to present an account that is

intricate, unusual and true, or nearly true, from which your royal

advisers may also derive some benefit.

Hear then, noble sirs, the history of

Zipperupus, king of the Partheginians, the Deutons, and the

Profligoths, of whom concupiscence was the ruin!

----------------+--+---------------

Now Zipperupus belonged to the great

house of Tup, which was divided into two branches: the Dextrorotarory

Tups, who were in power, and the Levorotarory Tups, also called the

Left-handed or Counterclockwise Tups, who were not—and

therefore consumed with hatred for their ruling cousins. His sire,

Calcyon, had joined in morganatic marriage with a common

machine, a manual water pump, and so Zipperupus inherited—from

the distaff side—a tendency to fly off the handle, and—from

the spear side—faint-heartedness coupled with a wanton nature.

Seeing this, the enemies of the throne, the Sinistral Isomers,

thought of how they might destroy him through his own lascivious

proclivities. Accordingly, they sent him a Cybernerian named

Subtillion, an adept in mental engineering; Zipperupus took an

instant liking to him and made him Lord High Thaumaturge and

Apothecary to the Throne. The wily Subtillion devised various means

to gratify the unbridled lust of Zipperupus, secretly hoping so

to enfeeble and debilitate the King, that he would altogether waste

away. He built him an erotodrome and a debaucherorium, regaled him

with endless automated orgies, but the iron constitution of the King

withstood all these depravities. The Sinistral Isomers grew

impatient and ordered their agent to bring all his cunning to

bear and achieve the desired end without any further delay.

"Would you like me," he

asked them at a secret meeting in the castle catacombs, "to

short-circuit the King, or demagnetize his memory to render him

mindless?"

"Absolutely not!" they

replied. "In no way must we be implicated in the King's demise.

Let Zipperupus perish through his own illicit desires, let his sinful

passions be his undoing—and not us!"

"Fine," said Subtillion.

"I'll set a snare for him, I'll weave it out of dreams, and bait

it with a tempting lure, which he will seize and, in so seizing, of

his own volition plunge into figments and mad fictions, sink into

dreams lurking within dreams, and there I'll give him such a thorough

finagling and inveigling, that he'll never get back to reality

alive!"

"Very well," they said. "But

do not boast, O Cybernerian, for it is not words we need, but deeds,

that Zipperupus might become an autoregicide, that is, his own

assassin!"

And thus Subtillion the Cybernerian

got down to work and spent an entire year on his dreadful scheme,

requesting from the royal treasury more and more gold bullion, brass,

platinum and no end of precious stones, telling Zipperupus, whenever

the latter protested, that he was making something for him,

something no other monarch had in all the world!

When the year was up, three enormous

cabinets were carried from the Cybernerian's workshop and deposited

with great ceremony outside the King's privy chamber, for they

wouldn't fit through the door. Hearing the steps and the knocking of

the porters, Zipperupus came out and saw the cabinets, there along

the wall, stately and massive, four cubits high, two across, and

covered with gems. The first cabinet, also called the White Box, was

all in mother-of-pearl and blazing albite inlays, the second, black

as night, was set with agates and morions, while the third glowed

deep red, studded with rubies and ruby spinels. Each had legs

ornamented with winged griffins, solid gold, and a polished

pilastered frame, and inside, an electronic brain full of dreams,

dreams that dreamed independently, needing no dreamer to dream them.

King Zipperupus was much amazed at this explanation and exclaimed:

"What's this you say,

Subtillion?! Dreaming cabinets? Whatever for? What use are they to

me? And anyway, how can you tell they're really dreaming?"

Then Subtillion, with a humble bow,

showed him the rows of little holes running down the cabinet frames;

next to each hole was a little inscription on a little pearl plaque,

and the astonished King read:

"War Dream with Citadels and

Damsels"—"Dream about the Wockle Weed"—"Dream

about Alacritus the Knight and Fair Ramolda, Daughter of Heteronius"—

"Dream about Nixies, Pixies and Witchblende"—"The

Marvelous Mattress of Princess Bounce"—"The Old

Soldier, or The Cannon That Couldn't"—"Salto

Erotale, or Amorous Gymnastics"—"Bliss in the

Eightfold Embrace of Octopauline"—"Perpetuum

Amorobile"—"Eating Lead Dumplings under the New

Moon"—"Breakfast with Maidens and

Music"—"Tucking in the Sun to Keep It Warm"

—"The Wedding Night of Princess Ineffabelle"—"Dream

about Cats"—"About Silks and Satins"—"About

You-Know-What"—"Figs without Their Leaves, and Other

Forbidden Fruit"—"Also Prurient Prunes"—"How

the Lecher Got His Tots"—"Devilry and Divers Revelry

before Reveille, with Croutons"—"Mona Lisa, or

The Labyrinth of Sweet Infinity."

The King went on to the second cabinet

and read: "Dreams and Diversions." And under this heading:

"Cybersynergy"—"Corpses and Corsets"—"Tops

and Toggles" —"Klopstock and the Critics"—"Buffer

the Leader"— "Fratcher My Pliss"—"Counterpane

and Ventilator"—"Cybercroquet"—"Robot

Crambo"—"Flowcharts and

Go-carts"—"Bippety-flippety"—"Spin

the Shepherdess"—"Pin the Murder on the

Girder"—"Executioner, or Screaming Cutouts"—"Spin

the Shepherdess One More Time"—"Cy-clodore and

Shuttlebox"—"Cecily and the Cyanide Cyborg"

—"Cybernation"—"Harem Racing"—and

finally—"Kludge Poker." Subtillion, the mental

engineer, quickly explained that each dream dreamed itself, entirely

on its own, until someone plugged into it, for as soon as his

plug—hanging on this watch chain—was inserted in the

given pair of holes, he would be instantly connected with the cabinet

dream, and connected so completely, that the dream for him would be

like real, so real you couldn't tell the difference. Zipperupus,

intrigued, took the chain and impulsively plugged himself into

the White Box, right where the sign said, "Breakfast with

Maidens and Music"—and felt spiny ridges growing down

his back, and enormous wings unfolding, and his hands and feet